The number of students receiving accommodations in their exams . . .such as the use of a tape recorder, reading assistance or a spelling waiver . . . has doubled in the past four years to 12,000. However, these students are often surprised to find their exam certificate contains explanatory footnotes outlining the accommodations they received This practice was overturned last November by the Equality Tribunal after two students with dyslexia took a discrimination case against the Department of Education. The department appealed the case, however, and the tribunal is not set to adjourn until 10 September. This means that when exam results come out next week, students who received special accommodations will have the explanatory footnotes on their certificate.

"This is just a provisional certificate of exam results, " said a spokeswoman for the State Examination Commission. "The official certificate of results [which would normally be issued in September] will not be issued until October when the appeal has been concluded. We are awaiting the decision of the court."

Ann Hughes of the Dyslexia Association of Ireland said it was very unfortunate that this year's students would have their learning difficulty highlighted in their results.

"The whole practice of annotating exam certificates is incredibly unfair, " she said. "Special accommodations are there to compensate students for the difficulties they have, so putting an asterisk on their exam certificate outlining the help they received is just contradictory.

It also gives them an unfair disadvantage when it comes to prospective employers."

Last month, Kim Cahill told the equality tribunal that she was "extremely embarrassed" when she found her Leaving Cert results contained notes pointing to her learning difficulty. The day she got her results was "probably the most embarrassing day of my life, " she said.